Wiz, the fastest ever to $100M ARR, raises $1B: What it means for companies in the cybersecurity space

All-in-one cloud security platform Wiz just raised a billion dollars at a staggering $12B valuation. While the company clocked $350M in annual revenue last year along with a 69% YoY growth in headcount, it might have to start looking outside via strategic acquisitions to achieve new heights of growth.

The New York based company has laid out a template for its next acquisitions. Wiz would most likely shop for companies across two categories: 1. Unicorns that have lost some of their steam and 2. Emerging early stage startups with huge potential. 

To corroborate this, we have examples like Wiz’s acquisition of Gem Security for reportedly $350M (falls into the latter category) as well as its letter of intent to buy Lacework which was once valued at $8.3B (falls into the former category) – although the deal eventually fell through.

We at Crustdata have a database of thousands of cybersecurity companies and we tracked down the most funded and fastest growing companies in the space. We also used the data to predict Wiz’s next few moves.

Sitting on the top of the list is California based Netskope which is a security platform to protect data, stop threats or any application

Outpacing the others by a large margin, Texas based HiddenLayer provides security solutions for machine learning algorithms and models for enterprises.

Below are the companies we think Wiz is most likely to acquire and the reason why:

1. Synk: A cloud native application security provider that enables developers to build software securely.

Funding: $1.2B

YoY Growth: 6%

Why: Losses of $267M in 2022, but still has potential. It could be a nice company targeted to be bought at a discounted valuation

2. Sysdig: A cloud and container security provider that helps stop cyber attacks without wasting much time.

Funding: $730M

YoY Growth: 1%

Why: Revenue and employee growth are a bit stagnant. Annual evenue estimated to be $30M despite being a $2.5B company.

3. HiddenLayer: A provider of security solutions for machine learning algorithms and models for enterprises.

Funding: $108M

YoY Growth: 221%

Why: Backed by the U.S Dept of Defense reinstating faith in the company’s potential ahead. 

4. Timus Networks: A platform that secures the workspace by connecting employees, devices and applications and protects against ransomware/malware and web-based threats.

Funding: $1M

YoY Growth: 77%

Why: Small, but impressive YoY growth seconded by its cutting edge SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) and Zero Trust automated SaaS platform

5. BluSapphire: A unified cyber defense platform powered by Machine Learning and analytics. It comes with intelligent response automation to detect any malicious activity well in advance.

Funding: $9.8M

YoY Growth: 52%

Why: Small, great YoY growth and interesting technology 

IPO bound Wiz is keen on growing their annual revenue to an ambitious $1B by 2025, a part of which will be channeled by the strategic acquisitions.

This is good news for the cybersecurity industry since there are going to be a bunch of big ticket buyouts which will ultimately lead to increased investor interest in the sector and further disruption and innovation by new entrants.

About the data

The data seen above is from Crustdata - the most accurate realtime LinkedIn data source for growth and private equity investors. It indexes billions of public data points on companies every week to provide an edge over the private market.